


Same Ghost Every Night

by ElwritesFanworks



Category: District 9 (2009)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Alien Sex, Alien/Human Relationships, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Anal Fingering, Anal Fisting, Anal Sex, Anger, Angst, Angst and Porn, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Bad Sex, Bathing/Washing, Bigotry & Prejudice, Bondage, Cheating, Christopher's 12 inch barbed dick, Cloaca, Cock & Ball Torture, Communication Failure, Consensual Sex, Consent Issues, Crying, Depressing, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Fatherhood, Fight Sex, First Time Bottoming, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Guilt, Hermaphrodites, Humiliation, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, Interspecies Sex, Intimacy, M/M, MNU aborting eggs, Mild Blood, Multi, Nipple Torture, Oral Sex, Other, Parenthood, Porn with Feelings, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Prostitution, Rimming, Scratching, Self-Worth Issues, Single Parents, Slurs, Trust Issues, Urination, Watersports, grooming someone as a form of intimacy (as an alien mating thing)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-15 05:51:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14784707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElwritesFanworks/pseuds/ElwritesFanworks
Summary: Christopher does what he has to to care for his little one. Sometimes that includes prostitution. It's in the whoring shack that he becomes acquainted with another side of the officious bureaucrat Wikus, who seeks absolution, punishment, and release at the hands of someone who represents every poor ethical decision he's ever made. It's a well-paying arrangement until Wikus starts feeling attached and Christopher is forced to question the human's motivations and his own.





	1. Deception and a Stained Mattress

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a Wolf Parade song I happened to be listening to while working on this. Also this is ethically super messed up, probably, but here we are, all sinning together.

* * *

As Christopher washed himself with dirty water collected in a salvaged plastic bucket, he considered humans. More accurately, he considered one human in particular, whose genetic material he was now flushing out of his cloaca with practiced, clinical motions. He felt numb down there, but then, he always made an effort to. His own seminal fluid, gathered beforehand and applied on nights like this one, served as a topical anesthetic, though it was not barbs he feared, but the painful tightness in his throat and gills when he did what he had to. The human from before had not been exceptionally large and he certainly had not been rough, but still, a knot of pain lingered in Christopher’s chest. He had been reduced to someone he scarcely recognized, but it was a shame he could – he _had to_ bear. Little ones could not live on dreams and promises, after all.

Humans were the reason for his plight, and the solution to his problems, also.

The frail one with the moustache surprised him, and not because he had seen him before in the district wearing the badge of an MNU agent. There were a few of their collective who came to slake taboo lusts in the shadows – it was not as uncommon as their organization would have people think. It was not because he seemed to take such delight in petty cruelty, either, like a hatchling tormenting some small animal, too young to appreciate another creature’s pain. It was because of what he had asked for – no – demanded, while his hands shook and he fiddled constantly with his wedding ring, standing on the threshold of the single-purpose shack, a bulge visible in his pressed trousers.

“How does this work, then?” he’d muttered to himself, clearly forgetting that Christopher was clever enough to reply. Perhaps he suspected him to be dazed and unresisting, payed in cat food like the other whores. Perhaps he simply couldn’t remember having met him. _The humans do say we all look alike to them._

“Right, here’s your payment – just like I was told about. One for you and one for your pimp, okay?”

He set the two cans on the low table beside the rag-covered mattress. Christopher clicked in objection.

“I do not accept,” he said.

“What do you mean – you fokken don’t accept my – who do you think you are? You’re a prostitute, aren’t you? A fokken prawn whore –”

“I want to be paid in money,” he answered flatly. “Human money.”

“Why? What good will that do you?”

“I want to buy –” he cut himself off. The vision of his child sleeping on soft, clean cloth with his belly full of meat hardened his resolve. “Human money, or no sex.”

“Fok,” the human growled but he dug out his wallet nonetheless. “How much?”

“Depends,” Cristopher trilled. “What do you want?”

The human reddened and pulled out a handful of cash.

“Here. This enough?”

Christopher took the money, counted it, and tucked it under the mattress. He’d dig it out and bring it home with him later.

“Mouth, hand, or hole?” he asked. The MNU agent shook his head.

“I want something else.”

It was an unusual preference, but not unheard of. Christopher forced himself to relax – something that would’ve been impossible without the sedative of his own semen easing the process – and felt his phallus begin to emerge from inside his body.

“Fok, no, man – I’m not a fokken homosexual, right?”

Christopher just stared at him. The words meant nothing to him, but it was clear he had misjudged. He retracted his organ, anxiety prickling under his plating.

“What do you want?” he asked again, insistently. The human swallowed and lifted his head, hands tightening into fists at his sides.

“Will you hurt me?” he asked.

Anger burned in Christopher’s gut. Not enough to take what wasn’t freely given – he had to play the victim, too, afraid of the big bad alien and his rapaciousness – as though, at the sight of that scrawny white body, he’d be moved to… what? Desire? Predation? Mockery – here? He had thought himself safe from it, for who would come all the way here just to insult him?

“N-not my face. Nowhere that leaves marks.”

Oh. _Oh._ That was his request then. This seemed futile and dangerous. Would he be arrested for striking an MNU agent after this? Then again, to turn him in would admit coming to this area voluntarily. In doing so, the human would also damn himself. Uncertain, he hesitated.

“Look, if you won’t do it, I’ll have my money back and I’ll find someone who will!”

“I’ll do it,” he hissed immediately, eyes narrowed. “I’ll do it.”

Without giving the human time to respond, he struck him hard in the gut with his fist.

It wasn’t the kind of hurt that bruised. Rather, it would sting and knock the air from his chest and leave him gasping. Sure enough, the human staggered and reeled. The smell of arousal came off him in waves, even as he cursed.

“Wait until I tell you to do it,” he snapped, but his hands shook badly as he peeled off his garments and presented himself, pink and hairy, to be serviced.

“I want you to hurt me,” he said, widening his stance. “But only my nipples and my genitals – can you do that? Nothing crazy – nothing that won’t heal, right? I don’t want to be fokken castrated, man.”

Christopher nodded, though he did not understand. He reached out, enveloping the human’s exposed organs in his hand and pulling hard, claws digging in. The human keened. He pulled away, flushed and aroused, and dropped to his knees.

“Step on them, yeah?” he panted. “Come on, man. I don’t have to beg you – I paid for this.”

Where was the pleasure in it? Christopher scraped his foot roughly over the flimsy red sac that contained all the bits that were supposed to be hidden inside and resisted the urge to shake his head. It wasn’t erotic in the least – but then humans were not particularly attractive creatures to begin with. Still. How could such an act bring pleasure to such a man who clung so desperately to the trappings of authority? He appeared one way and yet behaved in another.

Camouflage, Christopher thought. Yes. Perhaps that. But for what purpose?

“My nipples,” the human hissed, and directed Christopher’s big hands to them. He twisted half-heartedly. What was the _point?_

“Ah – ah – too much! T-too much, I –”

“Do you want pain or don’t you?” Christopher shot back, patience at its end. “You seem unsure of yourself.”

“Unsure of – I know myself just fine! What are you trying to say?”

_Who knows anymore? Moreover, what does it matter?_

Christopher pinched harder and the human screamed, arching his back and swearing even as his organ twitched and dribbled fluid.

“You want to feel bad, don’t you?” Christopher asked again, mainly for clarification. The human hung his head and nodded reaching down to pump himself. Christopher took over, squatting down and reaching for him, chafing his penis raw.

“Feel… bad…” the human echoed. Sweat stood out on his forehead, his cheeks, dripped from the end of his nose, glistened in the furry patch above his mouth.

“You feel guilty about yourself? Who and what you are – it disgusts you?”

“What am I?” he goaded. “Who am I?”

Christopher stared at him, still pressing down on his balls.

“Go on!” he grimaced. “I know you want to –”

“A small, ineffectual person,” Christopher answered. “You have limited power, and so you are overprotective of it. You are like a weak drone, vying for the affections of a hive’s queen. You stand no chance and you know it, so you fight all the more brutally, because you have nothing to lose. It makes you selfish and hateful.”

“That’s not true!” the human snapped, but then something strange happened. He began to make a low sound, and his eyes began to leak water down his face. He was crying.

“Not true,” he mumbled. “Not true, I’m… I’m a good person.”

He looked up and reached for Christopher, pushing at him until he got the idea and lay back, resigned. The human crawled up between his thighs and then there was the familiar jangle of a belt and the sensation of a length too smooth and short and fat to fill him right pressing into his cloaca.

“I’ll be gentle, yeah? So fokken gentle, see – I can be nice and a-and gentle when I want to be.”

He was still crying. He touched Christopher’s face in some feeble attempt at what the alien could only assume was an affectionate gesture between mates. He turned his head away, chittering in irritation, but the human kept at it, leaning down to press feverish, desperate kisses to his gills.

“See? It’s good – it’s good. Do you like it? It doesn’t hurt…?”

“No,” Christopher admitted, because it didn’t.

“Good – I told you! I’m a good person, you know, I’d never – I’d never hurt someone like this. Not a woman or even a fokken prawn.”

He reached down between them and began to rub awkwardly at the uppermost edge of Christopher’s cloaca.

“What are you doing?” he asked finally, because it was a strange and not altogether pleasant sensation.

“Do you not have a – ah – women have a… a place that feels good. Do you?”

Christopher parsed this and grimaced. He didn’t like to come for the humans. His own kind, he could tolerate, but to show a human such a thing made him deeply uncomfortable.

“No,” he lied. “We have no such thing.”

He clenched his internal muscles in an attempt to expedite the finale. The human moaned softly.

“You like it, though? I’m not hurting you?”

Why this false tenderness, after the equally over-dramatic violence from before?

“I am not hurting,” he sighed. “Oh, human, you feel very big inside of me. Bigger than my own kind and better too.”

It was a lie, of course, and as soon as he said it, he tensed. This human worked for the MNU – surely he had seen specimens and would understand how wrong the estimate was. Would he take offense? Would he beat him?

“Ah – it’s Wikus,” the human whimpered. “Please, call me Wikus.”

“Wikus,” Christopher repeated with difficulty. “Wikus. You have a nice sex organ, Wikus. It feels good inside.”

Wikus sobbed and bit his lip hard, trying and failing to hold back a garbled cry. It seemed even those who should know better liked to maintain the delusion after all.

_If he wants a delusion, I can give it to him._

“Very hard,” Christopher buzzed. “Very hard and long and deep. You will make me come apart if you keep at it.”

“I can do that,” Wikus panted, eyes shut tight in concentration. His face was blotchy red, and his hair stuck awkwardly to his forehead. “Oh, you understand, don’t you? I never hurt anyone because I want to – I’m a good man, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.”

“It’ll be better – the MNU is the best way to help both our peoples. Everything I have to do – everything I do is for the right reasons. The greater good. You have a – ah – a concept like that?”

“For the well-being of the collective,” he answered, surprised by his own honesty. “Yes.”

After that, it was easy to get Wikus to come. Christopher faked an orgasm, let the human pulse his incompatible seed inside where it would do no good at all and make no eggs, petted his hair, let him sob for a while. When he felt sufficiently absolved, the human withdrew, pulled his clothes on, and left without a second glance, eyes puffy and red. It was pathetic, really, and that bothered Christopher. He couldn’t relax, feeling torn like that, between hating the man and pitying him.

He paid well, though – too well. Christopher would have to hide his success from the others. As tempting as it was to buy his child new things immediately, it would give them away. That he had no pimp meant that he pocketed the lot, but he also had no one to watch his back. 

Fortunately for Christopher, he could succeed at subtlety, when he put his mind to it. He patted the lump of bills in his vest pocket as he dried himself between his legs and left the basin, heading for the shack that he could not bring himself to quite call 'home.'  



	2. Only Sometimes a Whore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Wikus, you flawed wreck of a person, you.

* * *

He came back a month later, the human who liked to be hurt. He fiddled with the knot of his tie anxiously as Christopher counted the money and put it away.

“You weren’t here,” he said, teeth bared. “Where did you go?”

Christopher looked him over with disinterest.

“I don’t live here. I am only sometimes a whore.”

“You could have told me. Saved me a trip.”

Part of Christopher wondered if Wikus had compromised and let someone else give him what he wanted. He considered this, mandibles working against one another, watching as the human shucked off his clothes and cleared a large space on the dirt floor.

“What are you doing?” he asked. The man replied with something hasty in Afrikaans that he couldn’t decipher.

“Piss on me – I need – want – you to piss on me, yeah?”

The man couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Why?”

“Do I have to fokken explain everything to you?”

He was irritable this night. Irritable and very hard between the legs.

It was incomprehensible. This was marking behavior – dominance on a level far greater than sheer pain. Submitting like this… what sort of sickness did this human have, to make him ask for it?

The size difference between them was apparent as soon as he began. Wikus clearly expected less than what he got – a torrent of hot, wet degradation, striking him squarely in the face. He coughed and sputtered, struggled to clear his airway and keep his mouth shut at the same time. Even as he cursed, his cock twitched and he leaked pre-ejaculate as though he was being given the most erotic treatment of his life.

“There,” Christopher said, stepping back, eyeing him. “Are you satisfied?”

“You’re fokken mouthy for a prostitute,” the human retorted but it came out breathy, and his hips rocked forward, looking for some kind of friction that wasn’t there.

“You want my mouth to be occupied? Is that it?”

“No – n-no, I don’t – ah, _fok!”_

Christopher knelt in the dirt and let his mouthparts trail over the hard length of the human’s arousal. It was odd, tasting traces of his own urine on this creature’s skin, but he found the taste more comforting than he did the bitter strangeness of the mammal’s sex organ. He never got used to it – how human semen tasted so familiar and yet so fundamentally, world-rendingly _wrong._

“Ah,” Wikus cried out, writhing on the wet ground. He reached down to grip at Christopher’s head and caught one of his antennas at an angle, pinning it entirely by accident against the plates of his cranium.

“Sssstop that,” Christopher hissed, pulling back and glaring up at the bewildered specimen of manhood who blinked back at him, flushed and dazed.

“Stop what?”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Or what?”

He snapped his mandibles hard, as close to the human’s testicles as he could get without causing damage. He meant it as a threat, and Wikus shouted in alarm, but his cock jerked on its own and he came untouched at the threat of such a violent amputation.

Afterwards, he curled in on himself, muttering something about ‘fokken prawns’ and sniffling into his hands. Christopher observed for a while before he succumbed to the guilt that had begun to gnaw at him. Too kind – showing mercy to someone like this. Still, he was no beast of brutality and he wouldn’t have this human think so.

“I should not have snapped at them like that, your little soft bits,” he admitted grudgingly. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

“They’re not little,” Wikus snapped back, wiping his nose on his wrist, mucus slicking his arm hair.

“Regardless, it was an escalation. It is not wise to taunt humans like this – I am sure you know all too well why.”

“I’m not going to hurt you – I told you – I’m a good person.”

He shivered, naked and pitiful with too much sincerity in the wet pools of his eyes. _Perhaps he believes his own lies. Perhaps he genuinely does not see the world around him for what it is._

Christopher wasn’t sure what to do with that train of thought.

“Come with me,” he said, but not before securing his money in his pocket. “Around the back.”

“What the fok are you playing at –”

“It is safe. Come.”

The bucket was out back, filled with the same stagnant water as usual. He gave it a cursory stir with his claw, then picked up a rag and dipped it in.

“You stand here. I will clean you.”

“Why?”

The human seemed genuinely baffled by the gesture, rather than suspicious. He shivered, cupping his hands over his genitals. What good would it do? Nothing like chitinous armor, this covering up with hands.

“You will go home like this to your mate? Covered in my scent? No? Then move these,” Christopher instructed, nudging them out of the way. He wiped at the semen first – the urine would wash off easily enough, but semen – human semen especially – always seemed inconveniently tenacious.

He did not mean to be tender, or to buzz a soft tune under his breath, but then, Christopher was used to bathing his child, and even though he tried to keep that part of his life separate from what he did in the shack, he found himself trilling gently as he sluiced water over and off the human’s skin.

“Is that a song?” Wikus asked. Christopher paused, tightening his grip on the rag momentarily.

“Yes,” he said with finality. “It is.”

“It sounds like a lullaby.”

“I sing it to my son,” he answered, and cursed himself. The human would no doubt use that to his advantage. He was so weary, here – this place, this _job_ seemed to drain the life from him. He could hardly think. _Can't afford to let down your guard - you know better than that._

“You have a son?”

The glint of interest in Wikus’s eye alarmed him.

“Relax, Mr. MNU agent. He’s legal.”

He took more water and began to clear away the residue of dried urine on the man’s shoulders.

“My mother used to sing to me in the bath. When I was young, I mean.”

Christopher stared at him.

“Do you have children of your own?”

Wikus shook his head.

“No. My wife – she wants to, but – ah… fok, I can’t talk about her with you.”

He recoiled, grabbing the rag from Christopher’s hand and wiping the rest of his body down in a rush. Christopher reached out and touched his wrist. The human was shaking.

“I… this isn’t because I don’t love her,” he said hastily. “This isn’t because she’s a bad wife or – or unattractive or something. She’s lovely – she makes me so happy. I just… sometimes there are too may thoughts in my head, you know?”

_Too few of importance. Mostly filler, with a tiny spec of brain matter clinging on, just doing its best._

“You need to feel redemption,” Christopher mused, antennas twitching. “I can provide it.”

“It’s not – there you go again, implying I’m a bad person. Who says a fokken prostitute prawn gets to be a judge of moral character?”

“You do. You keep asking me to deliver your punishments.”

Wikus scowled and stalked back into the shack. Christopher followed and found him pulling on his clothes.

“It’s nothing like that. You twist everything that I say.”

“Will you be back again next month?”

The human’s head snapped round, mouth open in angry protest.

“I am willing to be of service,” Christopher added neutrally. He wouldn’t go as far as to say that he was ‘happy’ about it – not like some of the worst of the cat food eaters. They’d do just about anything and thank the humans for it as they did.

“I’m not a bad person,” Wikus repeated. “I don’t fokken need to come here.”

“Shall I bring anything next time? A beating stick, perhaps? Some rope?”

That pale skin did nothing to hide the flush of shame that stained it. _Humans. So exposed. How could something so helpless do so much harm?_

“Rope would be nice,” he admitted through tightly clenched teeth. Before Christopher could reply, the man had exited the shack and was gone. The alien stared at the stain on the dirt floor and felt the lump in the pocket of his vest beneath his hand. He wondered, not for the first time nor likely for the last, if it was worth it.


	3. Sweetie Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a post kicking around on tumblr about how if you look in the background during one of Tania's interview clips in D9 you can see what appears to be sonograms pinned on the wall. I'm going with pregnant Tania in this because damn it all, this is an angst fic and that just heaps on the angst.
> 
> Also have some totally unsubstantiated/un-fleshed out headcanons about alien sexual behaviour I guess
> 
> Also I apologize for any typos or anything - I can't beta as well as usual. I just had blood drawn so I'm woozy af.

* * *

Rope – cheap plasticized twine – was easy enough to come by. It would be rough against fleshy human skin, but then, this human liked to hurt, Christopher reminded himself. He looked down at the rope in his hands and wondered what he was doing.

He had spent money on this rope. Not directly – he had spent money on a goat leg that he traded _for_ the rope – and not much, but he had done it. This went against the entire point of the process. If he was buying things for Wikus with the money he earned from Wikus, he was essentially going nowhere.

“Father?” chirped a small voice. He looked up, and found his son peering curiously at the twine.

“Are you making something?”

“No, child. It is for a – a friend,” he said, and hated himself for lying.

“A friend? Is this a present?”

“N-not… entirely. It is something he would like very much, so I am giving it to him.”

The child considered this, picking at the fraying end of the neon pink fibers.

“What does it mean, this word, Father?” he asked, and then said something that made Christopher flinch, the sound too ugly for such a young mouth to have made.

“That is not a nice word, little one. Where did you hear it?”

“From one of the other hatchlings. He said you were one of… whatever it means. What does it mean?”

Christopher debated lying again. He looked down at the wide, earnest eyes of his child and found that he could not.

“Do you remember, when I told you about breeding, child?”

“Yes. That’s how eggs are made. That’s how I was made,” the small alien responded happily. “I liked that story, of me in an egg, and you taking care of me.”

Christopher nodded. He liked it to – the caring part. Not the fear and the trauma of bringing an egg up in the District.

“There are many kinds of breeding acts,” Christopher explained haltingly. “Some of them are for love and these are pure and good. They are either for making eggs or for comfort between adults that love each other as mates do. Some day, when you are grown up, you will want this kind of breeding, and you will – I hope – enjoy it with someone who cares for you and is happy being your mate. But this is not the only time this act is done.”

He patted a spot on the floor beside him and his child scrambled over, sitting down and pressing close up against his side.

“There is an evil, corrupted act that can mask itself as the breeding act. It is an act of violation and humiliation. It makes a mockery of love by stripping away the power of one party to say no to the other. It is very bad, and I hope you only ever hear of it in passing.”

The child nodded, sobering at the thought, the gravity of which his young mind could not understand.

“There are two other variations of the act. One is ceremonial – primarily – and has to do with competition and breeding rights and selection of mates back home. It is an Old World custom and you will not find it here in the District, for various reasons, not least of which is that it requires organization beyond that of what we have here.”

“A hive?”

“Yes, child. It requires a hive. Which leaves the last – that which is done to gain something. As a form of payment or manipulation, predominantly. It has an association with court behaviours back home – it is mainly a method of political transaction. Here, however, it is different. Here it is about survival, and securing goods that help us to live better lives. The word you repeated is a cruel word meant to insult someone who goes along with such an act – specifically with a human – to gain material goods.”

“Do you do that, Father?”

“I do,” Christopher admitted. “I do it to provide things for you, little one.”

“But I don’t need many things!” the child cried. “I can give things up!”

“No – no, love. I want you to be as you are now – healthy and warm and as safe as I can make you. You are my joy. I am happy to bear some hardship for you – that is the job of a parent, you know. This rope is for one of the people I see. He said he would like it very much, so I am giving it to him. It will make him happy, and if he is happy, then he will reward me, and you and I will get to live well. You understand? I am not saddened, small one. I am determined we will live.”

The child nuzzled closer still and booped his chin with his antennas.

“I love you, Father.”

“I love you too, little one. Promise me you will stay safe tonight. Do not go out or cause any trouble.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Very good. Run along, then. You can play until sundown. If the children say cruel words to them again, just remind them that there is not a parent alive in this place who does not make sacrifices so that their young may live.”

 

+++++ 

 

“You actually brought it,” the human blinked, reddening at the sight of the rope. “Fok, I didn’t think…”

“You want this, don’t you?”

The only thing worse than having bought it would be having bought it for nothing.

“N-no, I do. I do want it. Here.”

A crumpled stack of bills, thrust at him in a sweaty hand.

“How do you want it?”

Wikus shucked off his shirt and trousers and stepped out of his underwear. He looked around the shack until he spotted a bit of crossbeam – repurposed metal that looked strong enough to hold his weight. He stood beneath it and lifted his arms.

“Here,” he breathed, his voice strange and soft.

Christopher tied him, pulling the twine taut so that Wikus had to rise up onto the balls of his feet to keep it from cutting deep into the meat of his arms.

“Now what?” Christopher asked. Something felt off about the whole night – the conversation with his child still stuck in his head. He wanted to be home, asleep, and hoped that Wikus would tolerate a disinterested handjob and let him go without much fuss.

“Claws… could you… could you scratch me with your claws?”

Christopher hesitated.

“They’ll leave marks.”

“I know… it’s alright. I’m not… No one will see. My wife is staying with her parents this weekend.”

Fair enough, then. Christopher raked his claws down Wikus’s bare chest, pressing just hard enough to leave faint red lines in their wake.

“Harder.”

He dug in deeper.

“Harder! Fokken – make me bleed, man!”

Christopher pressed harder. Skin split beneath his hands. Blood began to trickle down, red rivers against a backdrop of pale flesh.

“We fought,” Wikus admitted, unbidden, averting his eyes. “My wife and I – we… she got angry with me.”

Christopher made another set of scratches, watched them bleed.

“About this?”

“No. No, she… she’s pregnant,” he groaned, panting. Already he was erect and straining, pain and pleasure cross-wired someplace behind his eyes. “I didn’t say the right things.”

“You don’t want the child.”

It wasn’t a question, really, but Christopher was curious. He knew the MNU’s policy on children born in the District and supposed that the callousness of the agency could extend beyond the limits of his own species to their own.

“No, it’s not that. It’s… I don’t know. You have a child, you said.”

“Yes,” Christopher clicked in affirmative. He let his claws bite deep into the tender inside of Wikus’s thigh and watched in perplexed fascination as the act made the man’s hips jump eagerly.

“How’d you know you were ready?”

Christopher thought back to it. A child, born in the District… the prospect had terrified him. He had visions of eggs being destroyed, even with legal paperwork to back him up. The law was only as good as the people who enforced it, after all.

“I didn’t.”

Wikus didn’t seem comforted by this.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he said tersely. “I don’t pay you to talk.”

_You started it._

“Very well.”

Christopher let his claws trail over the hot skin of Wikus’s twitching prick.

“I’m not home enough to be a good dad!” he erupted. “I just want to make sure I don’t fokken ruin its life, you know?”

“Have you told her this – your wife?”

Wikus shook his head.

“She’ll just tell me everything will be fine, that I’ll be fine. I don’t want to hear that from her.”

He swallowed hard, a needy, guilty look passing over his visage. Christopher narrowed his eyes at it. He couldn’t always read the expressions on their round moon faces, but this one seemed clear enough.

_‘I want to hear it from you.’_

“You… you will, though. You will be fine.”

Wikus snorted.

“Yeah, right. What would you know about it?”

“I have no one,” Christopher replied. “I have someone who lives with me, but he is only a friend, and not the most reliable of people. My child has only one parent. So far, he does not seem worse off for it. Love, I think, goes a long way.”

Wikus slumped a bit at that, and for a while, they were still, save for the movement of Christopher’s hand as he delivered well-placed scratches. The human sniffled a bit, and when he raised his head again his eyes were red.

“It’s just difficult. She’s so perfect – she’s out of my league. I love her, but I’m always afraid she’ll… she’ll wake up one day and look over and see me there, in the bed, and go ‘What the fok am I doing with a pencil-pushing desk warmer like that?’ And then she’ll go, and my life will be over. Adding a kid to the mix only makes it worse.”

“She chose you, didn’t she?”

Christopher wasn’t sure how it worked, courtship among humans. He supposed it could’ve been an arranged marriage. They certainly weren’t unheard of.

“Yeah,” Wikus breathed, blinking through his tears. “Yeah. God. I just… I don’t know _why.”_

“Presumably she liked you,” Christopher replied, dipping the tip of one claw into the slit at the head of the human’s organ. “You are a… good man, after all.”

Wikus sniffled some more.

“I just… I want to forget it, for a while. Just to let my brain have a rest.”

“Close your eyes,” Christopher suggested. Wikus raised his eyebrows.

“What –”

“It will help. Close your eyes.”

Wikus hesitantly shut his eyes.

Christopher leaned in and traced his labrum over one of the hair-thin tears in the human’s skin, teasing at the tissue until fresh blood welled. He lapped at it, trilling low in his throat. Wikus writhed against the cheap plastic cord that bound him.

“Ah, fok that’s good,” he panted, arching his back, leaning into the pain. Christopher let his mouthparts trail upwards and tickle over the bud of one of the agent’s nipples. It was a strange little bit of anatomy – so fundamentally mammalian – so alien to Christopher. He wondered if Wikus would ever nurse his little one on these. He’d heard that only the human females did it, but he’d also heard about male lactation in passing while trawling through the internet, so he wasn’t sure what was true. Either way, the soft treatment seemed to torment Wikus as much as the rough stuff pleased him and he sobbed and pulled hard at the metal he was tied to.

“You’re very sensitive,” Christopher remarked. “More so than other human men I’ve known.”

“Sh-shut up,” Wikus moaned. “And I’m not just some human. You make it sound like I’m a nothing. My name is Wikus.”

“Why do you care that I know your name?”

“Because – fok – this isn’t some kind of predatory arrangement. I don’t want to be that guy – I’m not him.”

“And my saying your name conveys this?”

“Well,” Wikus shrugged awkwardly, arms bound as they were. “Well, it’s a start.”

Christopher didn’t reply to that. He wasn’t sure how to, not without revealing too much of himself, of the places he could be hurt. He licked up blood, pre-ejaculate, tears. Humans were such moist creatures. He’d heard it said that seventy percent of them was made of water, which seemed a ludicrous waste, especially since, for all that water, they were always thirsty, always drinking. Drinking so much just to sweat it all out or excrete it in other ways… it seemed inefficient. Humans could die of dehydration in the time it would take one of his own kind to even notice a lack of fluid intake.

“You’re a good person,” Christopher repeated. It fascinated him – the praise really seemed to hurt him more than the punishment. The man was sobbing inconsolably, swaying in his bonds, face and cock both red and wet.

“Please,” he begged, “Please, I need to come.”

“Shh,” Christopher trilled. “Wikus, you good man. Good father. You can come if you like.”

He let his mouthparts explore the musky warmth of the man’s scrotum and boldly raked a claw backwards, threatening, but not cutting, along the bridge of skin that led to his anus. Wikus thrashed in his bonds, choking on protests, but Christopher had expected this. Wikus had a curious relationship to things he hated – the simple fact that he came to Christopher for this was proof. Semen shot out of him as he shuddered through to completion, something about ‘filthy’ and ‘homosexual’ falling from his lips. He kept on weeping even as he lost his footing, taking his full weight on his arms and the twine. Christopher cut him down hastily and lowered him to the mattress, where he rested until he could stand.

“Pass me my bag,” he demanded. Christopher did so warily. The bag had bothered him since he’d arrived with it – there could, theoretically, be a weapon inside. Worse even. Paperwork declaring him a criminal for selling himself to the very agent that would be the one to see him arrested.

There was, in fact, a small first aid kit inside the bag. Wikus washed and dressed all the scratches he could reach and got Christopher to help with the ones he couldn’t.

“Thanks,” he said as the last of the antiseptic was spread on his upper back.

“Good luck with your child.”

Christopher meant it. He couldn’t hate a baby, no matter who its parents were.

“Oh, you reminded me!”

Wikus dug through his back and came up with a small, colourfully wrapped thing on a stick.

“Here, take it. For your boy. It’s a sweetie.”

Christopher stared at it.

“It’s okay – we get them for free at work to give to the kids. Go on – it’s not poison. Take it.”

Numbly, Christopher took it. The smile Wikus gave him was unsettlingly wide and earnest.

“Good. Good, look at us getting along so civilized. I’m glad.”

_Why? Why must you define your self worth like this?_

“Goodnight, Wikus.”

“Goodnight – ah, shit. I never asked your name.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

“Next time,” Christopher said, hoping the human would forget. “I’ll tell you then. Something to look forward to.”

After Wikus left, Christopher studied the lollipop in his hand. His gills felt tight, seeing it, so small and slightly crumpled.

 _Compromise is the first step towards annihilation,_ he thought, and tossed the thing out the door into the nearest heap of scrap.


	4. Sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to split up this chapter or we'd have fucking the 'War and Peace' of blow job scenes with like a million pages
> 
> Anywhosit, have some angsty bois
> 
> TW: for egg abortion and prejudice aka the usual canon ouchies

* * *

Wikus asked for the rope again. Angry as he was, Christopher was sorely tempted not to give it to him.

“On your back, then,” he said, twine held tight in his hands.

“No – like last time. I want to be standing –”

“On your _back.”_

The sharpness of his click made Wikus obey even as he grumbled.

“I don’t have to listen to you.”

Christopher did not reply. He was in no mood for banter. He bound Wikus with quick, ruthless efficiency and, inspired, tried something he’d seen one of the human prostitutes do once, looping the twine tight around the man’s sex – already roused and eager – and pulling the cord tight.

“Ah, fokken – be careful with that,” he chuckled, testing his bonds and grinning. Christopher wanted to break his jaw. Without warning, he slashed a claw across the agent’s thigh, deeper than in their previous encounter. Wikus swore and jerked away.

“Stop – my wife’ll see that.”

“You’ve reconciled, then.”

He couldn’t help himself, rage burning under his carapace.

“Yeah – what’s gotten into you, man?”

Christopher pressed hard on the scratch, dug in, smearing blood over stupidly soft human tissue.

“Ow – motherfokker! What the _fok_ is wrong?”

“You think I wouldn’t know?”

Wikus furrowed his brow, confused.

“Know what? What are you talking about?”

“You’re not going to address it – I had thought – but no, you’d rather come here and get me to purge you of your shame as usual and go back to your pretty wife. Does she know what you do for a living, Wikus? Does she know about the blood on your hands? It’s hard to believe she trusts you enough to have a child with you.”

Something flickered in the human’s eyes. Many somethings. Shock. Understanding. Shame – at last. It didn’t make Christopher feel any better to see it, not when he could still hear eggs popping when he closed his eyes.

“I don’t… it’s just part of my job, man,” Wikus mumbled softly. “How did you even find out?”

Christopher clicked in irritation.

“I could hear them.”

“The popping?”

“The _wailing._ All day and night – the mourning song. I haven’t heard so much grief since I was on the ship – when we thought all was lost. For all the hospitality of Man is worth, perhaps we were right to despair.”

“Wailing? What wailing – prawns don’t –”

“Has it ever occurred to you there are sensory experiences beyond the limited scope of your degenerate flesh-sack bodies?” Christopher snapped, fury in his eyes. Wikus opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Just because you cannot hear it doesn’t mean we don’t – but you don’t want to hear about that, do you? It would make your job so much more difficult, to know you’d shattered the hopes of people like your wife all day long.”

He fell silent, felt a weight press down on him. Exhaustion, such that he could scarcely breathe. Wikus stared at him, eyes wide, and there was a very real smell of fear sweat on him. Christopher wished he was the type to find revenge fruitful, but he couldn’t quiet the rational thought that retaliation against an MNU agent was a sure way to see his people rounded up and shot.

“I didn’t know,” Wikus admitted. “Why didn’t – why don’t you people tell us these things?”

Christopher narrowed his eyes in disbelief.

“We have to tell you that your killing our children is distressing to us?”

“Okay – no, no, I didn’t mean like that. That sounded bad. I mean… well…”

Wikus looked away, worrying his lip with his teeth.

“Just say it, Wikus.”

_Get the insensitivity over with._

“If you do care about them – the eggs – why would you… I mean, why would you even have children, in this environment? Why would you take that risk?”

“My people are leaderless followers – the ones here have been stripped of any options your kind would find respectable. If they cannot be productive, cannot work, they will do other things. How much thought did you give inseminating your wife?”

“Don’t – this isn’t about my wife.”

“Isn’t it? Did you tell her how many lives you ended today?”

“I don’t like talking about her here!” Wikus insisted, frowning. The look of irritation melted away as Christopher pinched his right nipple hard enough to make him arch his back and writhe.

“Why not a- _ah_ at least go through offi-official channels?” he continued, trying in vain to lean away from the touch. “We have f- _fok_ forms, and –”

“– and you know as well as I do that they are unnavigable by design.”

Christopher let his palm rasp roughly over Wikus’s cock, which was still half-hard. He sobbed and struggled, trying to kick his legs.

“Why are you fokken touching me while you’re interrogating me about abortions?”

“Don’t you like that, _human_?” he said it hatefully, like a slur. “Doesn’t it make you hard, putting an end to innocent lives?”

“No – it’s gross, man, stop!”

“Maybe I don’t want to. This is about punishment – you’re not meant to enjoy it.”

Christopher let go of the cock in his hand and sat back on his haunches, studying the man beneath him, flushed, panting, wild-eyed… he looked like prey.

“I could kill you so easily, you have no idea.”

Wikus couldn’t hide the way his cock twitched, not bound and on display as it was. He shut his eyes, mortification making him blush all the way down to his chest.

“Do it, then, go ahead!” he hissed.

“No – this isn’t about what you want. It isn’t about what I want either. We’re going to be miserable together this night.”

Without warning, he slit the twine securing the agent’s legs and wrenched them apart, pinning his hips to the floor. Wikus yelped, clearly fearing some sort of serious genital injury, but then he started babbling, in horror, as Christopher made his attentions clear.

“No – no way, man – I’m not into this – I don’t want – _fffffooook._ ”

Christopher felt smug vindication at the way the man lost control when he had mouthparts on his anus. He knew the act upset Wikus – and, predictably, it also seemed to arouse him. _Good. Feel ashamed of this. You can make excuses to cover up your responsibility to everything else, but not this. There is no one to pin the blame on._

“Fokken get your tentacles out of my ass,” Wikus protested, though it came out as a broken whine and his hips pressed back greedily. “That’s disgusting – you’re disgusting!”

“Everything on this planet is disgusting,” Christopher countered between flicks of his labrum. “You pollute everything – even this. It is not enough for you to kill our children and subjugate our people – you have to buy our bodies as well, make us service your stupid, tiny cocks and expect us to be grateful for your attention.”

He stabbed with one tentacle for emphasis, making Wikus sob.

“If you hate it so much, why do it? I didn’t have a gun to your head – I’m not a fokken rapist –”

He started to cry, then, properly, really cry, and Christopher faltered, sitting back and letting his hands fall down by his sides.

“I’m n-not – I don’t – it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”

Wikus reared up, straining against the rope, and with his legs free and unpinned, he was able to draw back into a sitting position, knees to his chest.

“We spent so long thinking about finding life beyond the stars – of – of all that would mean for us. We wouldn’t be alone in the universe – it’d be… it was fokken _huge,_ man. It was supposed to be different and you were supposed to – I don’t know! Like us? Kill us? Do something, anything more than just fokken sit here, waiting for us to fix everything – we don’t know how the fok to govern ourselves – how could we be expected to figure it out for you, too?”

He paused to catch his breath, panting. He was hyperventilating, eyes swollen and red.

“We did our best!” he wept. “I did my best… I… I did my best and it wasn’t… wasn’t good enough.”

He lowered his head and cried.

Christopher sat, silent and still. He hadn’t known humans could cry like this and certainly hadn’t been expecting it. It reminded him of the grief-wail of a parent when their egg was popped. It reminded him of the horrible sound of death aboard the ship. On the floor, Wikus rocked back and forth, arms still tied. Christopher cut the twine and watched as the man brought his hands up to cover his face.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered through his trembling fingers. “I’m sorry.”

 _Some predators feign death to ensure their prey is caught off guard,_ Christopher chided himself, and wrapped an arm around the shaking human. He trilled, low and soft, like he would for his little one, and let the man cling to him, staring at the ceiling. He could see a few stars through the holes in the rusted sheet metal, and the sight of them made his heart ache so keenly for home that he trembled, too.

He wasn’t prepared for Wikus’s mouth to press clumsily against his own, or for the soft hiccuping cries to turn needy, but he responded anyway. It was an awkward sort of kiss – Wikus really wasn’t built for it – and he carefully steered the man’s mouth down to his gills where the embrace felt better. He shut his eyes when that damned moustache brushed over the sensitive slit in his neck. A tongue followed. He chittered, antennas moving madly in response. It had been a long time.

For what was probably ten minutes, but felt like much longer, it went on like this, Wikus sucking at his throat. He patted the human’s back in slow, circular motions and tried to keep himself grounded. This was dangerous territory. This was monumentally stupid. Wikus wasn’t the brightest – the nuances of this were probably beyond him. Christopher should intervene, put a stop to it – he knew that, but weariness sapped his strength. He didn’t want to fight. For once in his time on this forsaken planet, he wanted to allow himself some hedonism, some abandon, to finally set down the fortune of his species and simply be an individual, a faceless no one in a sea of refugees. Unremarkable. Unimportant. Irresponsible.

Wikus’s hand palmed curiously over his chest. Christopher caught it with his secondary arm and held on, coaxing the man to lie back down on the floor. Trying his luck, he cautiously rolled them over until he was above the man, on top of him. Wikus caught one of his antennas and rubbed it. _Hard._

The sound Christopher made was one he had not heard himself make before – it had a rustiness to it – a sort of creaking, shuddering sound. Wikus’s eyes met his and his fingers moved again. It was a strange touch – rougher than Christopher was used to. He felt it all the way down his spinal column.

“W-who taught you about that?” he asked.

“MNU reading material. Anatomy of the Prawn, leaflet two. They’re… sensitive, yeah?”

Christopher managed a shaky chirp in the affirmative. Wikus eased up on the touch, letting his fingers move feather-light and gentle. Christopher let out a low rumble of pleasure.

“Shit… that feels good?”

“Yes.”

“So fokken weird,” Wikus breathed. “Ah, shit – my dick –”

Christopher glanced downwards. The loop of twine serving as a poor man’s cock ring was still tight around him, and his erection had returned with a vengeance.

“Let me –”

Christopher carefully slipped a claw between the rope and the hot flesh and tugged, gently, gently. The rope tightened briefly, making Wikus moan, and then snapped, falling in pieces to the floor. Something about it, purple with arousal, rubbed raw, made Christopher feel a flicker of heat in his belly. He’d never wanted a human prick like that before, but the sight of it had him crawling up along Wikus’s body and maneuvering the organ to bump up against the wet opening of his cloaca.

“You’re okay with this?” Wikus asked, and there was honest concern in his eyes. _‘I’m not a fokken rapist–’_ was stated as desperately in his open face as it was with his words.

“Yes,” Christopher conceded, and dropped his weight down, encasing the man’s penis in wet, tight heat.

“Oh, God,” Wikus groaned, head thudding back against the dry earth floor. “Oh, shit.”

Christopher rolled his hips and they both gasped. He wished, sharply, that he hadn’t anesthetized himself down there today – he wanted to feel this clearly, wanted to feel every hot throb inside him without a haze of numbness.

Wikus’s hands grabbed at his hips ineffectually. He felt around the back of him and then the front, patting clumsily as though looking to grab some soft, supple flesh that did not exist. Christopher knew with certainty, then, that he was the only one of his people who Wikus sought out for these meetings.

“What’s – fokken hell,” Wikus whimpered, grip tightening. Christopher followed his gaze to where the length of the alien’s phallus was beginning to emerge. He was so numb he didn’t feel his carapace parting, but now that he was watching, he could sense it – the air on his moist length, the ache in his barbs. Wikus watched with a look of mixed horror and arousal as the foot-long sex organ grew to its full size, which was at least twice as long as it'd been when Christopher had extended it, half-hard, the first night they met.

“Jesus,” he whispered, awestruck. “It looks nothing like –”

He immediately paled and shut up, and Christopher felt him soften a little inside his cloaca.

“Nothing like what?” he chirped.

“Dead ones,” Wikus admitted. “The autopsy pictures in the textbooks… it’s not… ”

His erection was wilting. Guilt painted his features. He averted his eyes and grimaced.

“Sorry,” he offered quietly. “I… I don’t want to think about that with you. Not when you’re… you’re different.”

Christopher stared down at him.

“Different how?”

“You understand me – you’re… you’re special to me. I can’t think of a picture in a textbook of some dead prawn and then think of you, I mean – it’s not the same.”

“Someone probably looked at that ‘dead prawn’ and felt the same way about them that you feel about me. Everyone’s special to someone. No one is just a body with no identity inside it.”

Wikus nodded hastily.

“I know – I know that! It’s just that I don’t know them – I know you.”

“And you don’t care about prawns you don’t know.”

Christopher climbed off Wikus, letting his softened cock slip out. He sighed, irritated and frustrated. This was a miserable night.

“Don’t – ah _kak,_ don’t just – everything I say is backwards tonight. Let me at least –”

He blushed, took a minute to gather himself, then offered,

“Let me at least suck you off.”

Christopher blinked at him.

“Could you repeat that?”

“No!” he snapped. “You heard me fine. Give it here.”

Christopher didn’t have it in him to refuse.


	5. A Moment Seized

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More alien headcanons  
> I like to think that in spite of their hermaphroditism, the aliens still have a queen/hive set up for governance, and that they see her as a female/matriarch. Because I love bugs and I love bug queen hierarchy systems in like bees and ants and stuff. So idk we're going with that.
> 
> Also I'm still so not satisfied with this chapter, mainly because I wanted to write a really satisfying blowjob and then I realized there's no way Wikus would be even remotely gifted at sucking a dick. He'd probably be pretty shitty at it, to be honest, be it an alien or a human dick.
> 
> ALSO lots of alien dick headcanons. I'm heavily inspired by some insect penises which get all kinds of crazy looking with barbs and spikes and stuff.

* * *

Wikus had no idea what he was doing – that much was immediately clear. He eyed the organ in front of him with trepidation, and hesitantly reached out to grab it with his hand. He didn’t make contact. Rather, his fingers twitched uselessly, and he took a deep breath in what looked to be an effort to calm himself.

“It’s the same – what you like and what we like, yeah? I just suck on it?”

“You can lick and touch as well as suck.”

Wikus opened his mouth and leaned in. He faltered.

“This won’t poison me or anything, will it?”

“You would surely have heard by now if we were venomous, Wikus. They would have told you at work.”

He considered this, nodding.

“What about where it’s been? I don’t want to put it in my mouth if it’s been in all your clients.”

“It’s only been in others of my own kind,” Christopher chittered back, increasingly affronted. “I could say the same thing about yours. At least mine retracts when I’m not using it – yours just dangles there, collecting dust.”

“There’s no dust on my penis,” Wikus retorted, but the jab was half-hearted. He licked his lips. Christopher could smell the fear sweat on him again. “Fok. Okay. Here I go. My way of saying sorry, okay?”

The alien didn’t respond. Part of him wanted to spit at Wikus for taking the easy way out of an apology, for thinking an inexperienced application of his mouth would compensate for child murder – at least enough to ease his conscience so he could sleep beside his wife with a clear head – but another, demanding part of Christopher wanted to simply enjoy the novelty of having a human literally kneeling for him. It was… gratifying to see an MNU agent humbled in such a way.

“Right. Here I am, putting my mouth… putting it in my mouth,” Wikus mumbled, and leaned in. His hot human tongue had a raspier texture than anything Christopher had ever had on his length, textured with tiny bumps that felt nothing like the mouthparts of his own kind. It made him trill in arousal and agitation equally. Wikus pulled back, alarmed.

“Was that –”

“It was fine. Keep going,” Christopher insisted. Wikus managed a shaky nod and leaned in again.

Christopher knew from his own experience that there was enough difference between a human penis and his phallus that the man would have been intimidated even if he _was_ well-versed in fellatio. The difference between the two amounted to about six inches, give or take, and that was surely alarming in and of itself to the agent kneeling before him. The head was barbed too. Christopher felt Wikus’s soft sigh of relief when he discovered that the barbs weren’t sharp or hard but were rather just a sort of outgrowth of erectile tissue that no diagram in a textbook or autopsy photo would have conveyed. Christopher also knew that his seminal fluid, precum included, had a smoky, salty taste that came closer to fresh meat than human semen. Wikus didn’t seem to mind it, and after his first cursory taste, he licked with mounting enthusiasm.

Christopher couldn’t keep silent for long. He reached down and, against his better judgement, cupped the side of Wikus’s head in what he hoped was a gesture not tender enough to attract undue attention. Wikus’s eyes flickered up to meet his briefly at the touch and hummed around one of the barbs in his mouth.

“Issnotbad,” he slurred, and then blinked in alarm as a bead of drool fell from his slack lips. “Th’fok?”

Christopher froze in realization.

“Ah… you may be a bit anesthetized. It’s not bad for you – it will wear off. Insemination in my species can be traumatic, especially if one of us is in heat. We can get… rougher than we mean to. This helps. It’s not dangerous – you’ll just feel a little… numb.”

Wikus stared at him with a mixture of indignation and wariness in his eyes. Christopher hesitated, then slid two fingers past the man’s swollen, pliant lips. They bumped the back of his throat and Wikus gagged, coughing, drool spilling down his chin. With a certainty that burned like fire in his gut, Christopher realized he could just about fit the head of his cock in that mouth. The thought made his hips stutter and he realized he had to – this one time. His one chance to have a human service him for a change… the image was intoxicating, but the real thing was sure to be even better. Impatiently, he thrust forward, catching Wikus at the right angle and shoving his way in deep. Wikus made a sound Christopher mistook for a groan – he was groaning too, it was so hot and tight and wet inside – but then a fist beat a warning against his hip bone. He looked down and saw panic in the face looking back at him, and no sooner had he withdrawn that Wikus doubled over, leaning to one side, dry heaving. He coughed hard enough to hurt, black-tinged saliva flecking his lips, and struggled to catch his breath.

“I can’t –” Wikus began between breaths, and Christopher felt some of his patience give way. He had hardly tried at all – and after Christopher had obliged him, time and time again!

“Is there no end to your excuses?” he hissed in frustration and dragged the man back into place by the hair.

“You will apologize here, tonight, if not as you ought to. It will not be enough to absolve you, but it will make you feel a little less unworthy of life. You should thank me for this,” he clicked firmly. “If you cannot take my length then you must find another way.”

He spread his thighs and shoved Wikus down for emphasis.

The human followed the direction and hot breath tickled the skin of Christopher’s cloaca, which twitched in response.

“Yeah,” he felt Wikus mumble, mouth against the rim. “Yeah, I can do this.”

Immediately, a chemically numb tongue dragged clumsily over the twitching orifice. He groaned and worked at Christopher with his lips and jaw, all worries of cross-contamination with previous clients leaving his mind. He could do it, too – he was even _good_ at it, like he did it all the time.

“Do you please your wife like this?” Christopher asked, and he felt Wikus falter.

“Don’t talk about her right now,” he mumbled.

“This is your penance. You will answer.”

“Yeah, alright?” Wikus shot back, already regaining some verbal articulation. Having only swallowed a bit of precum, and having coughed most of it up, his mouth was quickly returning to a functional state. “Tania likes me to take care of her – I’m good at that. I like it. I like being –”

He bit his lip and dropped his gaze, blushing.

“You like being what?”

“Useful.”

Of all the answers, Christopher didn’t expect something so… unadorned. Simple.

“You go beyond satisfying her in bed, then?”

He was genuinely curious.

“Yeah – I know you think I’m just some selfish human but I’m not – I mean, I’m a good husband. I think.”

_Barring the fact that you just slipped two fingers into the cloaca of someone who is not your mate._

“I make her presents,” Wikus continued. “Artistic things. I’m not much of a cook, but on the days I’m not at work I take her to nice restaurants, you know.”

“What else?”

“I don’t – why do you care?”

“I am asking the questions,” Christopher replied flatly – or as flatly a he could with fingers rubbing at his inner walls.

“I keep the house tidy. I pick up after myself… I rub her feet, you know. Give her massages.”

Christopher replied with a word that Wikus had never heard before – a strange, buzzing word that sounded fond, in a way.

“That’s like you,” he explained. “The ones who care for the queen. They keep her fed and cleaned, they comfort her and look after her. When she wants attention, they are there for her pleasure. They are selected for their skill at keeping her happy, and for their obedience. They are, from what I’ve seen and heard, not particularly intelligent. A perfect little palace worker.”

The human, blushing, didn’t respond to that, instead electing to start up with his mouth again. Christopher’s breath hitched and he found himself passing his claws gently over Wikus’s scalp, making the man shiver.

“I can understand you, I think,” he mused. “Your amorality comes more from stupidity than malice.”

Wikus swore at him, sliding his fingers back in where his tongue had been. He fucked the hole loose and sloppy, hand gleaming as translucent black juices slicked his skin.

“Don’t be so quick to anger,” Christopher chided. “I’m trying to find a way to redeem you. I don’t want to hate you.”

He shocked himself a bit, saying that. In truth, the confession worried him. He could not deny his loneliness, or that some part of him had come to see Wikus as different from the rest of the people who paid to lie with him. He could not pretend he had not been moved, as much as alarmed, by Wikus’s gift of the sweetie – even if he wouldn’t trust it. No client had ever cared about his child like that – no human at any rate.

That said, he could not shake the feeling of wrongness that permeated their meetings. He was treated like an equal, inasmuch as one in his position could be, in that Wikus argued with him, debated, shared bits of his life beyond just flesh and heat. Wikus saw him as a person – but he was the exception. It would be a sickening betrayal, to lose too much of himself in that fantasy, to enjoy being treated kindly while the same hand that offered him affection ripped the life support out of eggs. He could not accept the trade of his happiness at the expense of the welfare of his species – it was ethically unallowable.

Still, he found himself giving into the sensation of soft, fluttering licks against his opening and gently stroking Wikus’s hair letting a tongue and fingers push him to the point of revealing all of himself. The man really was a natural at this, and he seemed sincere… _I will let myself have this moment, on its own. It is a sort of transgression, but it is a small one. I will never let it happen again._

Christopher made very little sound when he came – it was nothing like the showy, artificial displays he did for the others – raising his voice to distract from the fact that he’d been disinterested the entire time. Instead he chirped softly, antennae flailing, and, in a fit of regrettable neediness, clasped Wikus’s hand. The human was startled – as much by the touch, it seemed, as by the pulse of Christopher’s cloaca against his lips – but he squeezed back clumsily with sticky fingers.

It took a moment for Christopher to come back to himself and when he did, he saw Wikus retreating, struggling to dress himself, picking at the blood crusting on the scratch on his thigh. He was hard again, genitals bobbing red and engorged. Obscene. It shouldn't have made Christopher's gills clench but it did.

“What are you doing?” he managed thickly, “Come – you should wash.”

“I… you want me to?”

His voice sounded small. Wounded.

“Have you learned anything from tonight – gained any insight?”

“Yes,” Wikus whispered, and dared to reach a cheeky hand down, rubbing the head of his cock.

“Then come. You must wash.”

Christopher pushed aside the curtain that covered the doorway to the back of the shack and the stagnant bucket of water. He waited for Wikus to walk to him, to look up and meet his eyes, and had a perplexing urge to comfort him, which he ignored. There was no room for tenderness between them – the bit of hand holding had been oversight enough.

“You never told me,” Wikus said, still absently touching himself. Christopher's fingers twitched. “Your name.”

_He will never be like you. He will never understand._

“Christopher,” the alien replied, and stepped out into the night before he could betray himself any further.


	6. Make It Count

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided I'm gonna split this one up too since it's massive. The epilogue will be separate. Enjoy. (Ps: sorry for any typos. I'm pretty drunk and will try to catch them when this goes up but given how drunk I am right now, I may miss a few in which case, fear not, I'll correct them eventually.)

* * *

Christopher debated simply skipping the monthly meeting. Even with four weeks having passed, he still felt uneasy about seeing Wikus again. They hadn’t really resolved anything, and the reciprocal head he’d given by the washing bucket had only wound up muddying the waters between them. Wikus had been all soft looks and unreadable, monosyllabic answers after he’d ejaculated, and had left before Christopher could ask him what any of it meant.

 _Nothing,_ he reminded himself. _It meant nothing._

Cruelty didn’t come naturally to him, and his heart was his weakness, but he was a parent and an officer. Responsibility was ingrained in his wiring. He was intelligent. He could set aside this absurdly misplaced tenderness and move on with his life. Wikus only had his first name, after all. He could simply never return to the shack, find other ways of making ends meet, and avoid the MNU when they came around. He probably should have, too, but rumours were circulating of a mass forced migration, a relocation of refugees. Such a move would mean abandoning his work on the ship, which was unacceptable, or finding ways to ensure his evacuation was delayed until the last possible moment, in the hopes that would award him enough time to finish repairs. _That_ meant bribes, more than likely, and bribes meant money. The quickest way to big influxes of cash was to keep meeting with Wikus, whether he liked it or not.

Still, he was genuinely unsure about what he’d find when he arrived at the shack. He found, to his surprise, nothing – Wikus wasn’t there. _Perhaps he has not come,_ he mused, and wasn’t sure how to feel. He loitered in the small room, hoping at least to attract another client, if not the well-paying MNU agent.

Wikus arrived half an hour later than he said he would, a paper bag in his hands. Grease soaked through it, and it smelled good – like meat and oil and salt.

“I stopped on the way to buy food,” he said sheepishly, holding up the little bag. “I thought I might as well get us both something.”

Christopher watched him open the crinkly paper to reveal an assortment of fast food items. His antennas twitched as the barrage of scents assaulted him all at once, and his mouthparts wriggled in response.

“Don’t just look – try it, man, it’s good!”

Wikus proffered one of the little bundles – some kind of breaded meat – and Christopher took it, stunned into silence. He watched as the man picked up his own portion and dug in without hesitation before trying it himself. Wikus gave him an incredulous look at that.

“You don’t trust me?”

Christopher couldn’t help but trill in amusement. Wikus grinned around a mouthful of food and nodded.

“I guess that’s a loaded question, huh?”

He took another bite and moaned audibly, following a drop of grease that ran down his fingers with his tongue.

“My wife hates when I eat this stuff,” he explained.

“Why?”

“Well, it’s junk food, so you know… not very good for you.”

“Why eat it?”

“Because it feels good,” Wikus answered simply. Christopher considered that. By that definition, this entire situation could be categorized as ‘junk.’ A junk arrangement. It was not healthy. It had not been even close to ethical to let Wikus make him come, but it had felt satisfying in a way that sex hadn’t since he’d lived in the District, where everything was furtive and rushed. And still, there was no sense of what it meant. Wikus spoke of his mate – who he left at home, with child, so that he could come here. Not just for sex, anymore – no – he brought _gifts_ – the sweetie, and now a full meal. _He likes to feel useful. If this is how he shows affection, then why does he do it to you? You provide him a service – that’s all this possibly can be. Surely, he must understand that._

The man lifted his hand to his lips again, moving to lick his fingers clean. Christopher’s claws caught his wrist and before he knew what he was doing he lifted those fingers to his own mouth.

Salt. Soft skin. Time seemed to slow as he groomed each digit tenderly. Wikus stared at him, mouth hanging slightly open, full of food. It wasn’t flattering – nothing about his blotchy blush or the sheen of sweat on his forehead was beautiful – but it made Christopher’s gills ache, throat tight with some sort of feeling he wouldn’t name.

He carefully turned the human’s hand and traced the lines that crossed his palms. He tasted salt, still, but a different kind – not of something fried and fatty but of skin, slightly damp in the heat of the breezeless night. He dragged his mandibles over that skin, scraping lightly but not biting, just softly nipping. Wikus’s breath hitched and he set aside his food.

Grooming. He was grooming Wikus. He moved his mouth down past the wrist, experiencing the different textures – the softer skin on the inside of his arm, the fibers of his arm hair, the spot at the inside of his elbow that made him moan quietly, equal parts arousal and wonder in his eyes.

This was different. Things had changed – whether they were going to talk about it or not. He could _feel_ it in the way Wikus responded to his touch, and the way his own pulse quickened. With cold certainty, he felt despair. There was only one solution he could think of in that moment, with the smell and taste of Wikus making his cloaca wet.

“We need to stop these meetings, Wikus.”

Wikus jerked back as if stung and the spell was broken.

“What – fokken – why?”

Christopher gave him a long, firm look.

“Do not make me say what we both already know. You are becoming too attached to this. To me.”

Wikus blushed, but there was none of his usual defiance in it.

“I just need this,” he said softly. “It helps. It fokken helps me. I can sleep, you know? And I don’t have dreams about – I know I’ve done some bad shit, okay? This helps.”

“Your wife could help too, if you confided in her.”

Wikus shook his head.

“I can’t sully her with it – I need more than just understanding. Don’t you get that? I need to _hurt_ and you’re the first person who lets me without… without reading into it.”

 Christopher tried and failed to ignore the way he warmed at being called a person, and not a prawn.

“You have crossed a line – bringing me gifts and… and asking about my son. I can’t allow that.”

“Oh? And what do you call all that stuff you did to my arm just now?”

There was no fire in it. They both knew the gravity of the situation, and their complicity in making the problem.

“Fok… you’re probably right.”

Wikus sighed and sat down on the mattress on the floor, taking his shoes and socks off and starting on his tie.

“Things are going to get complicated enough around here without –”

He stopped and pulled his tie free, wadding it up and tucking it into his shoe for safe keeping. Christopher narrowed his eyes.

_Without…? The rumours about relocation… are they true?_

There was no way to easily ask without raising suspicion.

“It will be hard to adjust to the loss of income. You’ve paid me well – my child is happier for it. We’ve been able to buy a soft mattress of our own and he’s eating good meat.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. They’d both been eating well, and he _would_ have bought the mattress if he hadn’t heard talk of forced migration. Still, he hoped it might prompt some sort of confession.

“I am thinking of painting our shack. My little one wants to put up some colours on the walls.”

“It might be wise to wait,” Wikus said uneasily. “It is not a good time of year for painting.”

Christopher waited for him to continue, to admit to the rumours circulating about the MNU. Wikus gave him a wary look, something shuttered behind his eyes.

_Still of his own kind, then. And I’m still trying to trap him. Could I call him an enemy? Could he call me one?_

“If you need the money, maybe we should still –”

“No. I do not need it enough to allow for that.”

“Right.”

Wikus got up, paced the floor, processing the information.

“We’re still okay for tonight, though, right?”

“Yes.”

Christopher felt himself warm at the question. Wikus was still interested – this would be painful for them both. In a way, that made it… no quite fair, but certainly easier to live with.

“We will take our time tonight,” Christopher said hesitantly, and Wikus nodded.

“Yeah…”

He half turned towards Christopher, eyes lowered in an effort to hide the damp shine in them.

“How do you want it?” Christopher asked. “Anything you like.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.”

It was a hell of an offer to make. They both knew the power in such an exchange.

Wikus scratched his chest and looked down at the mattress.

“Maybe… your mouth on me.”

Christopher nodded, getting to his knees as Wikus undressed and lowered himself to the mattress. To his surprise, he rolled over onto his front, raising his back end off the ground and burying his face in his arms. The alien's eyes widened a bit when he realized what the man was asking for.

Slowly, he took two handfuls of the human’s ass, parting his cheeks to reveal his pucker. He scooted forward on his knees and leaned in, letting his mandibles trail in the same teasing play-bite fashion as before over his cleft and down to the back of his balls. Up and down he moved, flicking with little scuttling motions of his mouthparts. Tasting. Grooming. This was an inherently affectionate gesture whether he wanted it to be or not, and his biology was such that he was overwhelmed by a chemical assault of fondness. Warm. Happy. Safe. He let one of his oral tentacles delve past the rim of muscle into the tight heat of the agent’s ass. He trilled a love-call involuntarily, immediately trying to stifle it, though he knew Wikus wouldn’t realize what it meant. The vibration made the human moan brokenly against his forearms and rock back into the flicking touches. He reached one hand behind himself, flailing desperately, and grabbed Christopher’s antennas together, giving them a clumsy pull. Christopher lost his balance and surged forward, gasping. Wikus shoved him backwards and climbed over him, taking one antenna in each hand and rubbing them simultaneously.

“How many times can you come in a night?” he asked suddenly. Christopher struggled to find his voice through the onslaught of pleasurable sensations.

“As many times as you need me to,” he chirped.

“Good.”

Without warning, Wikus slipped three fingers into Christopher’s cloaca, stretching him just enough to burn. He began slamming his arm back and forth, fucking him hard and fast, and Christopher lost his battle to suppress his vocalizations, chirring loudly, clicking at pitches too high for human ears, and uttering that damned love call like a worship chant. The other whores would laugh at him for that, he knew – that human managed to fuck him good enough that he reverted to instinct. He couldn’t find it in himself to stop, even knowing that.

“Tell me if you’re getting close,” Wikus instructed, and nudged at the slit in his carapace with his free hand, coaxing his phallus out to its full, erect state. He spat in his palm and began to pump it in time with the rough pistoning of his fingers. Christopher felt a fourth digit wiggle its way inside and he buzzed loudly, secondary arms reaching for any part of Wikus they could get.

“Almost there,” the alien managed by way of warning, and then Wikus slipped his thumb in – not all the way, but enough to do the trick. Christopher chittered frantically as he unloaded a copious amount of jet black ejaculate all over himself. He had regular sex, and pleasured himself to orgasm multiple times a week, but he had not had a phallic orgasm in close to a year, and the volume of seminal fluid shocked him as much as it intrigued Wikus, who dipped two fingers in it experimentally.

“The pre-ejaculate can numb your mouth, but this can numb your whole hand if you’re not careful,” Christopher managed. Wikus nodded, sitting back on the mattress and spreading his legs. He bit his lip and slipped a finger into his asshole.

“What are you doing?” Christopher blinked at him, unable to believe that Wikus would want what he seemed to be indicating.

“I’ve been thinking about it ever since I tried to suck you,” he admitted. “If this is the last time then I want to take it.”

“The barbs could hurt you –”

“But they won’t if you’re careful, right?”

Christopher hesitated.

“If you’ve never had anything inside you before, it will be difficult.”

“I know,” Wikus conceded. “But you said yourself, we have all night and… I may have tried some things since I last saw you. My wife’s… uh… my wife’s vibrator. It’s not as big as you, but it’s… something. I know a little, now.”

Christopher imagined it, Wikus pleasuring himself in a moment of privacy at home, right under his mate’s nose, thinking about taking alien cock inside him.

“Did you like it? Did you come?”

“Yeah, I came so fast the first time – I didn’t know what I was doing really and I tried turning the vibrator on and… fok, it was incredible.”

“And you just did it the once?”

At this, Wikus purpled and shook his head.

“A few times,” he admitted. “She… uh… she wasn’t happy. She came home early and – we fought.”

Christopher hummed in sympathy and slicked his digits through his mess, taking over the work of preparing the man’s tight hole.

“She said all this time she’s thought I’ve been cheating on her with a woman – and now it turns out I’ve been cheating on her with a man. And I told her, Tania, I love you, yeah? You know, I’m not some kind of – just because I like to play with my asshole doesn’t mean I’m gay, you know? But she fokken lost it, started telling me how she can’t trust me, how am I going to be a father to her child if I’m more interested in satisfying my own needs, and she asked me ‘where’ve you been sneaking off to, because I know it’s not overtime because I asked my dad’ – my father-in-law – and I said ‘maybe he doesn’t tell you every – holy fokken shit!”

Christopher rubbed over the spot he knew drove human men crazy. Wikus abandoned his recollection in favour of arching his back and gripping the mattress until his knuckles turned white.

“H-how many fingers have you got in there?” he asked, dazed, when Christopher paused to gather some more of his cum to use as lubrication.

“Just the one, so far. Do you think you could take another yet?”

“Fok. I don’t know.”

Christopher resumed with one, but Wikus shook his head and turned over, getting on his hands and knees again.

“Two fingers,” he insisted. “I can take it.”

“Wikus –”

“It’s already working, the anesthetic – I’m already relaxing down there, getting nice and numb.”

_That’s what I’m worried about. If you can’t feel pain, I could eviscerate you._

“Please, tell me if you feel anything tear.”

Christopher added a second digit. Wikus wheezed, cursing and shuddering through the stretch.

“Is that good?” he asked.

“God, yeah. Fok…”

He kept his head down against the mattress, pressing back against Christopher’s hand as he was fingered, gentle and slow. His cock was rock hard, flushed dark with blood, and it bobbed against his stomach, eager for more stimulation. He breathed through his mouth. His skin shone with sweat. He was blushing past his shoulders now, the muscles in his thighs flexing as he forced his legs wider apart, aching for a deeper touch.

Christopher leaned down and added his labrum to the mix.

“Oh, Jesus!” Wikus keened brokenly, his tone nearly a sob. He rubbed his face roughly against the bare mattress, desperate for some kind of pain to compliment his pleasure. Christopher didn’t stop in his ministrations, but he did reach his free hand up to pinch Wikus’s nipple. The man really did sob that time, curling his toes and squirming.

“Please,” he panted. “Please, Jesus – Christopher – stop it, man, I’m gonna fokken come.”

“No, you won’t,” Christopher responded flatly. “You’re a good man. You’ll do as you’re told.”

He withdrew his fingers for emphasis, coating them in cooling, viscous black and plunging them back inside. All three this time.

Time was strange, amorphous. It bled out, a slow, agonizing death, until it was meaningless. Wikus stuffed fingerfuls of cum in his mouth, numbing his lips until he drooled and was able to deep-throat his own digits, gagging, hiccuping, crying and moaning in a sort of bone-deep satisfaction that could only come from having your body used beyond its normal capacity. He shivered and whined when Christopher withdrew and looked over his shoulder, pupils so dilated that his eyes were as dark as Christopher’s cum.

Christopher held his gaze. No words were needed. Wikus nodded shakily and braced himself.

It was the tightest thing Christopher had ever felt – nearly painful, scalding hot. He slid in slowly, each soft barb scraping against Wikus’s sensitive insides. Inch by splitting, brutal, glorious inch, until the whole foot-long length was buried in the agent’s hole.

Wikus – this Wikus – was unlike anything Christopher had ever seen. He was beyond words, responding to every sensation as though his nerves were experiencing them for the first time, as though pleasure had never been his before. Tears welled in his eyes and streamed down his cheeks, but he didn’t turn away, craning his neck to see over his shoulder. There was so much open emotion on his face that he looked wild – feral. Nonhuman.

Christopher pulled back. The agonizing slide of it had the man howling, tugging at his own hair, scratching his own skin raw. He writhed and spasmed, trying to move on the mattress. Christopher gave him some room and he turned over onto his back, drawing his legs up, holding himself open with his hands.

The barbs caught on his rim as the alien sunk back into him. On his back, now, Wikus could arch and toss his head, groaning in a mixture of Afrikaans and pre-linguistic, animalistic grunts. He wrapped his arms around Christopher’s neck, fingering the sensitive slits of his gills, and pulled his head down, sucking on his labrum insistently. Christopher shifted again, barbs scraping the human’s prostate, and Wikus broke the kiss, very nearly _bleating._ Christopher followed his face as he turned it and lapped at the tears on his cheeks. Salt. Salt and musk and sex, but no blood. No violence here.

He looked down. Wikus’s prick stood, purple and dripping precum. He reached for it, lubing it up with the last of his spilled semen, thankful that the ejaculation of his species took so long to dry. It eased the slide of his hand and with just two pumps, Wikus was coming, hips bucking, muscles clenching hard around the twelve inches of dick in his ass. He splattered his chest with rope after rope of white, human jizz, and then rode out the aftershocks as Christopher’s hand milked him dry. He whimpered when it became too much and Christopher let the softening cock slip out of his grip, moving his hands to take a firm of hold of the agent’s hips.

“Good man,” he trilled, and started fucking him hard and fast. Wikus reached for his hands and held onto them and raised his head to suck Christopher’s gills. He stuck his tongue into one of the slits, simultaneously restricting Christopher’s airflow and making electric jolts of pleasure shoot through his chest, skewering him. He chittered and clicked and spilled for the second time that night, filling Wikus up with hot, thick cum. He withdrew shakily and stared in wonder at the sight of his black, alien jizz leaking from Wikus’s well-fucked hole. He couldn’t resist – he rubbed a knuckle over the mess, smearing it back and forth, staining the agent’s skin. It looked obscene and arousing, the contrast of black seminal fluid and pale, armourless flesh. He bent his head and groomed Wikus there, too, licking up every trace of evidence of their coupling. By the time he was done, Wikus was coherent, lying on his back, staring at the stars through the holey roof. Christopher watched the rise and fall of his chest for a while, then, hesitantly, lay down beside him.

They didn’t speak. Wikus’s head bumped against him and he didn’t look over, even when he felt the man lean it on his shoulder. Gradually, their breathing slowed. Christopher was nearly asleep when Wikus spoke up.

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

Christopher considered it. He had the shack until morning, and the door was latched. His little one was being watched by another parent in the District. Wikus’s wife was already angry – returning now, reeking of sex, likely wouldn’t help matters.

“If you wish.”

Wikus did wish. He fell asleep, blindly trusting Christopher not to harm him – but, then, the alien supposed they had both had ample opportunities to betray each other and they hadn’t taken them, so perhaps it wasn’t as foolish a gamble as it seemed. As he mulled this over, his own eyelids began to droop, the effect of two orgasms catching up with him. He shut his eyes for a moment, just to rest them, and when he opened them again, sunlight was streaming through the holes in the roof.

He looked around, blinking in the brightness, trying to get his bearings. Wikus, he realized immediately, was gone, as were the man’s clothes and the remnants of the forgotten dinner. Beside him on the mattress, Christopher found a folded bunch of bills – double the usual amount. With them – he faltered, unsure what he was looking at at first. He lifted the object to his face and clicked in soft surprise.

It was a small star, made of some kind of hardened material that felt light as air in his hand. It had been painted yellow, and had been signed in blue ink.

_“You like being what?”_

_“Useful.”_

_“I make her presents,” Wikus continued. “Artistic things. I’m not much of a cook, but on the days I’m not at work I take her to nice restaurants, you know.”_

Christopher slipped the money into his pocket along with the star, which he wrapped carefully in the bills for safe keeping. He had a quick scrub down at the water bucket, taking the time to pick off a residual flake of dried seminal fluid – white. He rubbed the spot where it stained him absently as he dressed, looked once more at the mattress on the dirt floor, and set out to collect his child.


End file.
